Administrative network fully restored after 56-hour crash

Civil petitioners wait their turn at a community center in central Seoul's Jongno District Office, Monday. Yonhap

Gov't still struggles to identify cause of system failure

By Jung Da-hyun

The government's administrative computer network system has been fully restored, after 56 hours of paralysis which caused massive inconveniences to public services across the country, according to the interior ministry. However, questions remain as to the fundamental reason for the system failure.

Following the restoration of Government 24, the government's online civil service portal, Saturday, the Saeol administrative network used by civil servants to access government-approved documents became accessible on Sunday afternoon.

The Saeol administrative network was inaccessible from 8:40 a.m., Friday, and the widely used online Government 24 portal also broke down later that day.

"Our two-day investigation confirmed no issues and disruptions with the service and system. They are now fully restored," Vice Interior Minister Ko Ki-dong said during a press briefing on Sunday.

With the network now restored, the civil complaints document issuance service has resumed at community centers in cities, counties and districts across the country.

Civil petitioners flocked to the community centers early Monday morning, concerned about potential crowds, as civil petition documents had not been issued properly both online and offline during the network disruption period.

The Ministry of the Interior and Safety announced, Monday, that it will operate a situation room to respond to failures concerning local administrative computer-based services, with related agencies, including the National Information Resources Service and the Korea Local Information Research and Development Institute.

The purpose of the situation room is to continually monitor for irregularities with professionals stationed there so as to respond quickly to ensure stable service operations.

Vice Minister Ko also announced plans to prepare fundamental and effective supplementary measures to prevent further service outages. This includes establishing a comprehensive plan by forming a task force to reform local administrative computer services with private experts, governments and related agencies.

A meeting for operating the situation room in order to respond to failures in local administrative computer-based services is held at the Korea Local Information Research and Development Institute in western Seoul's Mapo District, Monday. Yonhap

Meanwhile, concerns still linger as the fundamental cause remains unidentified. The interior ministry announced that the incident was found to have been caused by a malfunction of a layer 4 switch, a piece of network equipment in the administrative electronic signature authentication system of Government Public Key Infrastructure (GPKI).

However, the ministry has yet to determine what caused the equipment failure.

Experts point out that if the incident was a network problem as announced by the government, it seems that it took too long to determine the cause and solve the problem.

Kim Ho-won, a professor of computer science and engineering at Pusan National University, emphasized that such problems can happen in any situation. He noted that technology to respond quickly to such situations and repair the system is more important than responding to such situations in advance.

“It took a long time to deal with the disruption this time. I can say that the government's shortcomings were seen in terms of its coping methodology,” he said.

The professor explained that the inability to pinpoint the cause of the problem shows that IT maintenance and repair parts lack skilled and professional workers.

IT maintenance and repair are known to be areas that experts avoid due to low wages and high work intensity. However, professional and skilled personnel are essential to quickly analyze and respond to the cause of an error.

"The task force, announced by the interior ministry, needs to recruit professional and skilled personnel and continue to develop technology so that the government can respond quickly to computer network problems and prevent the current confusion from returning,” Kim said.